78 
Bruifes wondrous foveraign. Their Hearts fwallowed 
frefh, is a good Antidote againft their Venome, and their 
Liver {the Gall taken out) bruifed and applied to their 
Bitings is a prefent Remedy. 
23 and 114 of the Voyages. Wood justly says of this "most poisonous and dan- 
gerous creature," that it is " nothing so bad as the report goes of him. . . . He is 
naturally," he continues, "the most sleepy and unnimble creature that lives; 
never offering to leap or bite any man, if he be not trodden on first : and it is 
their desire, in hot weather, to lie in paths where the sun may shine on them; 
where they will sleep so soundly, that I have known four men to stride over 
them, and never awake her. . . . Five or six men," he adds, " have been bitten 
by them; which, by using of. snake-weed" (compare the preface to this, p. 119), 
"were all cured ; never any yet losing his life by them. Cows have been bitten; 
but, being cut in divers places, and this weed thrust into their flesh, were cured. 
I never heard of any beast that was yet lost by any of them, saving one mare " 
(/. c). Of other serpents, Wood mentions the black snake; and Josselyn, in his 
Voyages (/. c), speaks of "infinite numbers, of various colours;" and especially 
of "one sort that exceeds all the rest; and that is the checkquered snake, having 
as many colours within the checkquers shadowing one another as there are in a 
rainbow." He says again, "The water-snake will be as big about the belly as the 
calf of a man's leg" which is, perhaps, the water-adder. Josselj'n adds, "I never 
heard of anj' mischief that snakes did " (7. c.) ; and so Wood : " Neither doth any 
other kind of snakes " (the rattle-snake always excepted, as no doubt dangerous 
when trodden on) "molest either man or beast." There are perhaps no worse 
prejudices in common life, than those which breed cruelty. In the Voyages (p. 
23), our author makes mention "of a sea-serpent, or snake, that lay quoiled up 
like a cable upon a rock at Cape Ann. A boat passing by with English aboard, 
and two Indians, they would have shot the serpent : but the Indians disswaded 
them ; saying, that, if he were not kill'd outright, they would be all in danger of 
their lives." This was from " some neighbouring gentlemen in our house, who 
came to welcome me into the countrey ; " and it seems, that, " amongst variety of 
discourse, the}' told me also of a young lyon (not long before) killed at Piscat- 
away by an Indian ; " which, indeed, was possibly not without foundation. And 
as to the serpent, compare a Report of a Committee of the Linna;an Society of 
New England relative to a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, seen 
near Cape Ann, Mass., in August, 1817 (Boston, 1817) ; which contains also a 
full account of a smaller animal — supposed not to differ, even in species, from 
the large — which was taken on the rocks of Cape Ann. — See also Storer, Report 
on the Reptiles of Mass. ; Supplement, p. 410. 
